A rare performance from the great Alan Jackson.
These days, Alan Jackson is all but retired from touring. He capped off his Last Call: One More For the Road Tour last year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and while I had tickets to see that show, I was sick as a dog and had to miss it. It was devastating…
However, he later announced that he would be performing one final concert this coming June. The massive event will take place at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday, June 27, 2026, and officially mark the end of his legendary touring career.
The star-studded concert will feature a ton of special guests, including Eric Church, Luke Combs, Luke Bryan, Riley Green, Cody Johnson, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and many, many more. And it’s safe to say it’s the hottest concert ticket of the year, by a large margin. So hot, that people were paying other people to wait in line to get tickets for them… can you imagine standing in line for hours for a concert you’re not even going to? I guess if the money is good enough…
All that to say… an Alan Jackson performance is an extremely rare occurrence these days, and that’s why the annual National Memorial Day Concert was such a special event this Memorial Day Weekend. Held annually on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., the concert is dedicated to honoring the military service members, veterans, and their families who have sacrificed for the country.
The event is traditionally broadcast live on PBS on the Sunday evening before Memorial Day, and this past weekend featured performances from the aforementioned GOAT, Alan Jackson, as well as Jamey Johnson, Mickey Guyton, Andy Grammer, Mary McCormack and more.
Alan delivered a captivating performance of “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning),” the post-9/11 anthem that garnered him multiple awards. The song would go on to win Song of the Year and Single of the Year at both the CMA Awards and the ACM Awards in 2002, and it would also land Alan a Grammy Award for Best Country Song.
Beyond the awards though, the song was able to offer some kind of healing at a time when the country was still in shock and trying to make sense of such a horrific tragedy. With Memorial Day being a time to remember those who paid the ultimate price so we can live in freedom in this incredible country, hopefully it can bring some healing to all the families missing their loved ones right now.
Alan sounds just as good as he ever has.
Behind The Song
On October 28, 2001, just a little over the week before Alan was scheduled to perform his current single “Where I Come From” on the CMA Awards, Alan had woken up in the middle of the night with an idea for a song. He got out of bed, and sang the chorus into a handheld recorder – while he was still in his underwear – so he wouldn’t forget it:
“I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I could tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran…”
He stayed home the next day and finished the song, but he had no plans or desire to record it. Speaking on the song, Alan said he wanted to try to put into words how he was feeling as he saw the second plane hit:
“I didn’t want to write a patriotic song. And I didn’t want it to be vengeful, either. But I didn’t want to forget about how I felt and how I knew other people felt that day.”
And he was initially hesitant to record it, because he didn’t want it to seem like he was capitalizing on the tragedy. But when he played the song for his record label, they told him he had to record it.
According to RCA chair Joe Galante:
“We just kind of looked at one another. Nobody spoke for a full minute.”
And Jackson reluctantly agreed, realizing it was a song that the world needed to hear at a painful time.
“I’m glad that people like it, but I’m a little nervous about the attention. I think it was Hank Williams who said, ‘God writes the songs, I just hold the pen.’ That’s the way I felt with this song.”
When the time came for his CMA Awards performance, Alan took the stage, seated in front of a full orchestra, and delivered the first-ever performance of “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)” in front of a grieving country.
“Where were you when the world stopped turning
That September day?
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Or driving down some cold interstate?
Did you feel guilty cause you’re a survivor?
In a crowded room did you feel alone?
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her?
Did you dust off that Bible at home?”
The response was immediate – and overwhelming. Alan got a standing ovation from the crowd at the CMA Awards, and the next day radio stations had pulled the live performance from the television broadcast to play on the air.
With the sudden overwhelming demand for the song, his label rush released the studio version of the song and sent it out on November 26, 2001. They even pushed up the release date for his upcoming album, Drive, from May of 2002 to January, to get the song out sooner.
Reflection
In recent years, Alan reflected back on his CMA Awards performance of the song, admitting that it was a tough performance for him:
“I just remember — other than being relieved that I got through it — that I just felt very proud that it seemed to cause a reaction in people. I was proud that I got to do it, and that it seemed like it meant something.”
And he also admits that he was a little uncomfortable with the spotlight that was put on him for that song:
“I’m not really big on chasing that spotlight, and it just put a lot of tension on me for a while and made me feel like it was hard to follow. It’s like they put you up on a pedestal, and I kept saying, ‘Look, I’m just a songwriter. I’m just a singer. It’s just a simple song. I’m not trying to get up on my soapbox. I’m just an old country guy who writes and sings songs.’”
Though he never expected it to become the hit that it did, that CMA Award performance turned into a powerful moment of healing for a nation that was hurting:
“That CMAs performance made me very proud, but I thought it would probably go away in a couple of years and I wouldn’t be playing it on the road anymore. But now after all these years, it’s kind of just evolved… in what the song is about, anyway. It’s all about faith, hope, and love… not just about 9/11.”
Not just 9/11, indeed… Happy Memorial Day weekend. Remember: Freedom isn’t free.
